Native Americans and Thanksgiving

Reenactments of historical events are a much loved pastime. I first came across one 12 years ago in Illinois. On a field were people dressed as knights, carrying all manner of weaponry. I thought it was a movie set, but learned it was a group that does this on a regular basis.

In school, we teach children to do reenactments, like "The First Thanksgiving." Lots of time is spent making hats and headdresses and other articles of clothing, and, talking about "The First Thanksgiving."

But is this particular reenactment best practice? Is it educationally sound? Certainly, it is fun for some of those who do it, but should teachers and children be doing it at all?

Teachers work very hard, but receive little respect for their work. And, they are underpaid, too, often spending chunks of their too-small salaries to buy things their schools cannot provide. Due to lack of time and resources, teachers often recycle activities from one year to the next. I think Thanksgiving reeactments are one of those things that gets recycled. Developing new ways of teaching about Thanksgiving will take time and money. Before that can happen, however, teachers must learn more about Pilgrims, Indians, and "The First Thanksgiving."

They can start with Deconstructing the Myths of "The First Thanksgiving," a free resource by Judy Dow and Beverly Slapin, available at Oyate. At the bottom of "Deconstructing the Myths" are two lists of recommended books. It includes three lists of books: 1) Recommended Books about Thanksgiving, Also take a look at their  "Books to Avoid" about Thanksgiving.

Not surprising, but still disheartening, is the number of books on the first two lists. Dow and Slapin's short list includes only one work of fiction: Jake Swamp's Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message, published in 1995 by Lee and Low. The other five children's books on their list are non-fiction, and one is a teacher resource. In contrast, there are over 80 books on the "Books to Avoid" list, but it doesn't have to stay that way.

Teachers are a powerful group. You can effect change. Because of teachers' letters telling them that children were using "Indian Red" to color Indians red, Crayola changed the name of their "Indian Red" crayon to "chestnut." With Thanksgiving coming up, perhaps teachers can push publishers to give them better books. To find contact information for them, go to Children's Book Publishers at Kay Vandergrift's website on children's literature. (You'll have to hunt around on a publisher's website to find their "contact us" page with addresses and phone numbers.)

Obviously, we need more books on Dow and Slapin's recommended list, but they won't be written unless people ask for them.

A Review of Ben Mikaelsen's TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR

Editor's Note, March 10, 2008: A lot of people come to this page from "Web English Teacher" and may be surprised to read the critical review below. I hope that you'll consider it and the other essays on this site about Touching Spirit Bear. Share what you read here with your students. How does information provided here compare to positive and favorable reviews? Does the negative review change your view of the book in any way?
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2006: Beverly Slapin's review of Ben Mikaelsen's Touching Spirit Bear

Editor's Intro to Slapin's Review: American society loves to love Indians and things-Indian. Or rather, things they think are Indian. There’s a long history of exploiting our ways of being. Touching Spirit Bear is another example of that exploitation. You don’t have to buy or read it. There are better books available. To find them, visit the Oyate website.

[Note: This review is used here with permission of the author, Beverly Slapin. It may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.]

Mikaelsen, Ben, Touching Spirit Bear. HarperCollins, 2001, 241 pages, grades 5-up; Tlingit

For centuries, restorative justice or circle justice has been practiced in one form or another by many Indian communities. The object is to restore the wellbeing of the victim or the victim’s family, rather than to punish the offender. This is done through a multi-step talking-circle approach, in which the people most affected by the crime, along with community representatives, come together to heal and to try to agree on a fair and reasonable settlement. The sentencing plan involves commitment by the community, family members, and the offender. In 1996, a pilot circle justice project, in conjunction with the criminal justice system, was initiated in Minnesota. 

In Touching Spirit Bear, Cole Matthews is an angry, out-of-control Minneapolis teen, the son of wealthy, abusive alcoholic parents, convicted of viciously beating a classmate. This manipulative and violent young offender is given one more chance: to take part in the circle justice program. Soon Cole finds himself on a remote Alaskan island in Tlingit territory, banished for a year, overseen by a Tlingit parole officer and a traditional elder—and watched by an enormous white “spirit bear.” Here, he resists, wrestles with, and ultimately comes to terms with this chance to take responsibility for what he’s done. 

Ben Mikaelsen’s writing, in places, is evocative and a dead-on accurate portrayal of a troubled teen. After the bear near-fatally mauls Cole, there are excruciatingly detailed descriptions of his struggles to survive by eating worms and bugs, a live mouse and even his own vomit. With broken ribs, legs and an arm, and too weak to get up, he defecates in his pants, and fights to stay alive. It is during this time that Cole begins to understand his vulnerability and his relationship to everything that surrounds him. It is here that his transformation begins. 

All of this having been said, Touching Spirit Bear is fatally flawed by Mikaelsen’s inexcusable playing around with Tlingit culture, cosmology and ritual; and his abysmal lack of understanding of traditional banishment. It is obvious that what he doesn’t know, he invents. Edwin, the Tlingit elder, instructs Cole to: jump into the icy cold water and stay there as long as possible; pick up a heavy rock (called the “ancestor rock”) and carry it to the top of a hill; push the rock (now called the “anger rock”) back down the hill; watch for animals and dance around the fire to impersonate the animal he sees (called the “bear dance,” “bird dance,” “mouse dance,” etc.); announce what he’s learned about the characteristics of that animal from his dance; and finally, carve that animal on his own personal “totem pole.”

This is all garbage. The purpose of banishment is to isolate a person so that, in solitude, he can think deeply about his life and relations, and prepare to rejoin his community. When someone is banished, he is left to learn on his own whatever is to be learned. It is not about white boys “playing Indian.” It is not about teaching white boys the rituals of another culture. And most especially, it is not about carrying rocks up a hill and performing a bunch of stupid cross-cultural animal impersonation dances.

The author’s own relationship with bears and his supposed almost-close-enough-to-touch encounter with a “three-hundred-pound male Spirit Bear” notwithstanding, Touching Spirit Bear is a terrible book.

—Beverly Slapin

[Update, 5/7/2008: Please read further information about Touching Spirit Bear here.]

"What Works Clearinghouse"

In the last few days, more than one Internet listserv has carried a post about the U.S. Dept of Education's "What Works Clearinghouse." It prompted me to visit the pages for the clearinghouse, and then to post my thoughts on the contents of the Character Education page. Below is what I wrote. This is important to me because of the lack of content regarding American Indians.

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On Sunday, September 17, 2006, I went to the What Works Clearinghouse web page, interested specifically in the Character Education component. This was my first visit to the site, which is maintained by the US Dept of Education.

It was interesting (though not surprising, given the Bush administration's NCLB program and focus on "accountability") to see the Clearinghouse's emphasis on testable, measurable outcomes for a student's development of moral ways of thinking and acting. Morality and character, apparently, can be measured by tests.

Of equal interest to me was the topics in the "Facing Our History" portion of the Character Ed pages. In this module, students "examine historical events, in particular the events that led to WWII and the Holocaust."

There is some material on slavery, too, but as far as I am able to determine, not a single reference to moral questions regarding the treatment of American Indians. There is some material regarding the Eugenics programs, but it looks like it is limited to Hitler, when there was a very active program here (in the U.S.) as late as the 1970s.

It appears to me that the program, which "aims to promote core character education values and to help middle and high school students develop moral reasoning skills" deliberately uses events that make other countries the "bad guys" while avoiding immoral actions of the U.S. government, especially with respect to American Indians.
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I've heard back from an individual who works in the Dept of Ed. He is going to forward my remarks to people in Washington responsible for the site, and he will let me know if he receives a reply. Frankly, I won't hold my breathe. I doubt the gatekeepers in the Bush Administration cares what I think. They have an agenda that has no room for challenge to their vision of America. Under his administration, they also developed a program at the National Endowment for the Humanies that is also, from my point of view, anti-Indian. I'll blog about that another time.

American Indian Families in Fact and Fiction

At UIUC, I am involved with the Youth Literature Interest Group, a group of faculty and doctoral students in Education, English Studies, Library and Information Science, and (me) in American Indian Studies from UIUC, Illinois State University, and Eastern Illinois University.

On October 20-22nd, we are hosting a conference called "Family, Youth, and Literature."

On the program for the conference, you can see that I will be on a panel on Saturday morning (Oct. 21st). My presentation is "American Indian Families in Fact and Fiction." A brief look at some of what I will present:

In fact, there are over 500 distinct federally recognized tribes in the United States today. Is this diversity present in popular works of fiction?

This is stating the obvious, but oftentimes the obvious is ignored... Today and in the past, we have mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and aunts who love and care for children and other members of the community. Are they included in popular children's books?

As a Pueblo Indian whose people speak Tewa, I called my grandmother "sa?yaa" (note that I am unable to use diacritic marks in the Blogger software) or "gram." The same is true across tribal nations. We use our own language (or English) to refer to women, men, babies, etc. We did not use the words that predominate in popular children's books: "squaw" or "brave" or "papoose."

In a nutshell, I will talk about the ways American Indians and their families are (are not?) portrayed in classic and popular children's books. I will also highlight books like Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer, that do a better job of presenting us as we are.

Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire

Two weeks ago, I shared a little history about UIUC's American Indian Studies program, and I talked about LeAnne Howe, a member of our faculty. I noted her books (Shell Shaker and Evidence of Red) and mentioned her upcoming film, "Spiral of Fire." Today I want to call attention to the film.

Viewing films like this one can help you become better informed about American Indians. Being more informed will help you evaluate children's books, media, and lesson plans about American Indians.

To learn more about Indian Country Diaries, go to their website. There you will find a synopsis of the series, a screening toolkit, viewer's guide with questions for discussion, high resolution images and screen captures (lower resolution) of "Spiral of Fire." Here's the first paragraph of the synopsis:

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“Spiral of Fire” takes author LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) to the North Carolina homeland of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to discover how the mix of tourism, community, and cultural preservation is the key to their tribe’s health in the 21st century. Along the way Howe seeks to reconcile her own complex identity as the illegitimate daughter of a Choctaw woman, fathered by a Cherokee man she never knew, and raised by an adopted Cherokee family in Oklahoma. Howe’s search leads the viewer on a journey of discovery to one of the most beautiful places in America where Cherokees, living on lands they’ve inhabited for 10,000 years, manage their own schools, hospitals, cable company, tourist attractions and multi-million dollar casino. Yet, despite these successes, diabetes threatens 40% of the population, racism undermines self-confidence, and greed threatens to divide the community. “Spiral of Fire” reveals the forces at work to restore health, prosperity and sovereignty to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

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In addition to LeAnne's "Spiral of Fire," Indian Country Diaries includes a second documentary, "A Seat at the Drum" featuring journalist Mark Anthony Rolo (of the Bad River Ojibwe nation). "A Seat at the Drum" starts out at Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California. Riverside was one of the last boarding schools created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (see previous posts to the blog on children's books about boarding schools). Rolo spends time in Los Angeles, which, due to government relocation programs, has the largest urban Indian population in the U.S. (over 200,000 as reported on US Census).

The films will be broadcast nationally on PBS in November.

"Spiral of Fire" will premiere at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian on Friday, September 29 at 7:00, and on Saturday, September 30, at 1:30. LeAnne will at the premiere on Friday evening for a follow-up discussion.